On a gray, drizzly day just made for a Paris museum visit, workers at the city's premier art institutions went on strike Wednesday, leaving tourists out in the cold and some residents worried about the image that France projects.

The French financier who apparently killed himself after losing more than $1 billion of his clients' investments to Bernie Madoff's alleged Ponzi scheme also saw his own family's money disappear, his older brother told the Associated Press on Friday.

Robbie Maddison thinks big. New Year's Eve he jumped his motorcycle over the length of a football field: 322 feet, 7.5 inches. In March, the 27-year-old Australian topped himself Down Under with a record-breaking 378-foot leap.

The 468-page French indictment makes seamy reading: secret arms deals feeding bloodshed in an oil-rich African country. Envelopes of cash changing hands in a Paris mansion. A cast of defendants ranging from a debt-ridden tycoon to a Chinese opera singer.

The 468-page French indictment makes seamy reading: secret arms deals feeding bloodshed in an oil-rich African country. Envelopes of cash changing hands in a Paris mansion. A cast of defendants ranging from a debt-ridden tycoon to a Chinese opera singer.